Found in Papua New Guinea in upper montane forests on steep slopes at elevations of 2100 to 2300 meters as a small sized, cold growing epiphyte with porrect, cylindrical-obovoid pseudobulbs arising from above the base of the previous pseudobulb and carrying a single, apical, erect, elliptic, acute, gradually narrowing below into the shortly petiolate base leaf that blooms in the spring on a porrect, short, single flowered inflorescence with a tubular, acute floral bract.

J J Vermeullen states that "Bulbophyllum fruticulum is most similar to B. exiguiflorum
Schltr., but differs in having much smaller leaves (45
1.01.3 cm in B. exiguiflorum), a much shorter pedicelwith-
ovary (pedicel-with-ovary 5 mm long, much more
than twice the length of the bract in B. exiguiflorum), and
finely erose petals (coarsely dentate in B. exiguiflorum)."